each primed leaf
sprouting quills
tipped with a glittery deceit,
a viscous hell

disguised as a dewy heaven.

Victorian Jet

In the jeweller’s window,
an assortment of Victorian jet,

brooches and lockets
laid out

on a velvet tray,
like small fossils

of grief.

Moonflower

Coaxed into flower by a May full moon,
you bloom for just one night,

flood
busy tropical air with a scent

more pineapple than floral.
Intoxicate

hawkmoths for miles around,
desperate to reach

your nectar offering, petals
opened to a laundered freshness,

white as seed pearls or the pallor
of a short-lived heroine.

Titan Arum

Colossus of Sumatran forests,
who’ll have no truck with honey bees, fritillaries;

instead
with a stench of rotted corpse

tempt sexton beetles, flesh flies,
grim connoisseurs of carrion,

into sultry powder rooms.
A hothouse sellout, crowds swarmed

to your once in a blue moon flowering,
on your arrival at Kew.

Frock coated gentlemen turned crimson
as your pleated spathe,

at your raw priapic show,
while whale boned matrons pressed

to their faces fragranced silk,
to mask a surging thrill.

Stephen Bone’s work has appeared in magazines in the U.K. and U.S.
His first collection, In The Cinema, was published Playdead Press in 2014.
A pamphlet, Plainsong, is due from Indigo Dreams Publishing later in 2017.